first mel harder, then larry doby

mel harder spent his entire career with the cleveland indians, from his debut in 1928 at the age of 18, to his final appearance in 1947 at the age of 37.  in between, he won 223 games for the tribe.  the team retired his number 18 in 1990, and after he died in october of 2002, the team wore a memorial patch in his honor the following season.

you can see the '18' patch on jhonny peralta's jersey on this 2004 donruss classics card

when they wore sleeves, the indians moved the patch to the right sleeve, as seen on josh bard's 2004 topps card

in june of 2003, while the team was mourning the loss of harder, former indian larry doby also passed away.  doby was the second african-american to play major league baseball, and the first to do so in the american league.  he debuted for the indians just a few months after jackie robinson broke the color barrier in april of 1947.  he spent 10 seasons with the indians, and helped them win the world series in 1948.  his number 14 was retired by the team in 1994, and he was elected to the hall of fame by the veteran's committee in 1998.

in his honor, the indians added a '14 doby' patch to their uniforms.  you can see it here on jhonny peralta's 2003 upper deck card

both the doby and harder patches are visible on coco crisp's 2004 topps card

and we get a closer look on casey blake's card from the same set

perhaps the best view of both patches comes courtesy of cc sabathia's 2004 playoff honors card - front

and back

or maybe this 2004 donruss card is better

the indians were not the first team to wear more than one memorial patch at the same time - i know the dodgers and the yankees have done so, too - and the yankees have done it more than once.

another couple of tc pwes, a bubble mailer bomb, and a ballsy package

i will admit, i fell for the april fools 'take my cards' post over at crackin' wax, but even though i didn't get any topps five star cards, i did receive cards from previous claims.  fellow twins territorian topher sent me a couple of pwe's recently.  they contained a 2013 topps heritage ted lilly

and a 2013 topps gypsy queen hanley ramirez mini

just because i asked for them.  not shown is the aj ellis (or was it mark ellis) heritage card that i also received.

topher's 'take my cards' is one of the best deals running.  follow him and check it out.  just don't claim my dodgers!

thanks topher!

usually when a fellow blogger sends me a pwe, it's wes from jaybarkerfan's junk.  this time, however, wes sent cards in a bubble mailer.

here's a 1995 signature rookies old judge card of wilton guerrero

i believed in wilton guerrero, but no matter what the dodgers were going to get the short end of that brother stick.  speaking of which, i see vladdy has signed with the long island ducks.  it's not supposed to end like that for him.  can't the astros take a flyer on him?

the second of the three cards that i requested from wes is this 2004 donruss shawn green relic card

and the final card is this 2006 fleer flair showcase jeff kent, numbered to 150

because, why not?

thanks for the cards wes.  i sent a return package out to you yesterday.

and then there is arno from i'm ballsy.  he posted a card at the blog of trade bait blog and i bit.  it's a 1999 topps gallery adrian beltre auto

it's a very nice card, and the first beltre auto in my collection.  stoked.  arno also threw in a few dodger cards just because dodger collectors are cool like that.  although i have to admit that i did not add any cards to the package that i sent him.  i have rectified that, however, and no longer have to hold my head in shame.  anyway, there was this 1996 pinnacle aficionado card of hideo nomo that i hadn't seen before

as well as a couple of other nomos that i will feature tomorrow.  there were also two cards from 2005 topps chrome update in the package, including this heath totten card

totten seems to have been a pretty good aa pitcher, but never advanced beyond aaa although he did pitch there for the dodgers, phillies and twins organizations.

thanks arno - your 'extra' cards are in the mail.

in fact, i mailed out 14 trade packages and 1 pwe yesterday.  anybody else want to trade?

a double play dump

here is a veritable smorgasbord of cards featuring the double play turn at second base.

from 2003 upper deck, we have rookie of the year angel berroa

future hall of famer craig biggio

former big leaguer carlos febles

gold glover brandon phillips

and journeyman rey sanchez

dude turned 130 dp's in 2001, though.

here's a 2003 upper deck sweet spot card of astros' prospect tommy whiteman turning two

although the guy sliding in is tough to see.  whiteman, a native american, made it to aaa with the astros and rockies, but never did get the call to the majors.

here's a 2004 donruss card of junior spivey

and a 2008 topps stadium club 1st day issue parallel of german duran

duran made it to the majors in 2008 but hasn't been back since.

now for some 2009 topps cards - alex cintron

and kelly johnson

plus a 2009 upper deck sweet spot troy tulowitzki card

these next two, i purchased from william of foul bunt via check out my cards on black friday.  they are both 2010 topps gold parallels - alberto callaspo

and ian kinsler

now we get really random - here are a couple of minor league cards that i got in a trade a while back - 2003 bowie baysox team issue cards of mike fontenot

and chris lemonis

a 1993 topps stadium club card of felix fermin

and that fantastic double play card from 1971 of cookie rojas

why am i showing cookie again?  because this one's canadian!

cookie shines like a star in the summer night!  that would be a good card to end on, but there are still a ton more double play cards to be featured.  stay tuned!

from alston to young to me from someone

one day last week i got a couple of card packages in the mail, which, as you all can imagine, is not a rare occurrence. one of the packages, however, had me stumped.  there was a return address, but no name, and there was nothing inside the envelope other than a big brick of dodger cards.  no note.  i put that issue aside and delved into the cards.  they were provided in alphabetical order by last name, and while it wasn't aase to zimmer, it was close.  the first thing i saw was walter alston's mug.

this is a 2005 topps 'dem bums' insert card

it's cool because smokey didn't have a card in the 1955 topps set.  he did get a 1955 style card in the 1995 topps brooklyn dodger archives set, but it was different than the one above.

next up is adrian beltre

on a 2004 donruss career stat line card.  it's numbered to 262 since beltre's career batting average after the 2003 season was .262.  it's too bad it wasn't numbered /1 which would have been the number of botched appendectomies beltre had undergone.  i am compelled to remind everyone that beltre finished 2nd in the national league mvp vote in 2004 behind barry bonds, whose obp that year was .609!  good golly miss molly that's a high obp.

here's barry's former teammate bobby bonilla on a 1999 fleer tradition warning track parallel

it's actually a mets card, but i'll hang on to it.

i did not know anything about bob borkowski before i received this card

he was included in the 1955 topps set, but as a cincinnati red.  in fact, check out his card - it looks a lot like this one, as does his card from the 1995 archive set.  borkowski was the player the dodgers received in exchange for joe black.  he appeared in 9 games for the team in 1955, but did not appear in the postseason.

if this 1995 score 'hall of gold' card weren't so shiny,

you would see that delino deshields is turning two.  i wonder if there is a non-gold version of the card.  hall of glossy, maybe?

here's another shiny card, a 2004 ud reflections card of jason frasor

frasor was one of two pitchers that the dodgers acquired from the tigers in 2002 for hiram bocachica.  they flipped him in 2004 to the blue jays for jayson werth.

this 1996 fleer ultra greg gagne gold medallion card

scans better than it looks in person.  at first i thought it was a card from a pacific set.

much nicer is this 2000 fleer ultra todd hundley gold medallion card

i did a little bit of research on the address, and determined that the package (of which i will show more later) was sent to me by eutaw street cardboard as part of his 'name your team' promotion.  thanks kent!

in my ongoing crusade to collect dodger cards...

...i received some cards from jeff at my sports obsession.  these cards were sent to me a looong time ago, and they have sat in my scanned folder for far too long.  sorry jeff.  here's a shiny 2002 donruss rookie crusade card of victor alvarez.

alvarez, you might recall, is the guy with the interesting signature.  putting a sticker on this card, however, would probably be too much.  although something tells me that donruss did just that.  hold on - yep, they did. gross.

here's a 2004 donruss card of dave roberts

it's a career stat line parallel, so it too is shiny and even serial numbered.

there were some more recent cards in the package, too, like this 2008 upper deck timeline chin-lung hu card

hu got a ton of cards in 2008.  now, four years later, i thought he was out of baseball after being released by the indians earlier this year, but he is playing in an independent league.

here are a couple of cards from 2009 topps ticket to stardom - chad billingsley

and manny ramirez.

remember him?

here's a 2010 bowman card of carlos monasterios

monasterios spent the entire 2010 season on the dodgers' 25-man roster as a rule v draftee (acquired via a trade with the mets).  to date, that is the only season in which he has pitched in the big leagues.  he underwent tommy john surgery in 2011 and had another surgery earlier this year.  the dodgers released him in april, and it will be interesting to see if he lands with another team.

here's one of those shiny refractor things from (i think) a cereal box or blaster of 2010 topps

another jackie for the collection.

i think when i received the package, this was a newly issued card.  no joke.  it's a 2011 topps heritage andre ethier card

i think i may have scanned it because it was the first of the 2011 heritage cards i had seen.  thanks for the trade, jeff!